Syracuse, N.Y. -- Rakeem Christmas never planned on earning his Syracuse University degree a year early. Even in the fall, Christmas didn't think he had enough credits to receive a diploma after just three years at Syracuse.

Joe Fields, the Syracuse basketball team's assistant director of academic support, couldn't convince Christmas that he was so close to earning a degree.

"Joe kept telling me at the beginning of the school year that if I took a certain amount of classes that I could graduate early,'' Christmas said. "But I didn't pay him any mind. Until now.''

Christmas, a junior center on the Syracuse basketball team, will walk through graduation ceremonies this weekend as he receives a B.S. in communications and rhetorical studies from SU's College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim believes Christmas is the first SU basketball player to earn a degree in just three years.

"It's got to be about as rare as can be,'' Boeheim said. "It's an unbelievable accomplishment.''

Christmas will actually complete work on his degree with a couple of online courses this summer. It's fitting in that Christmas started his college career and accelerated his progress toward a degree by taking summer courses. He began with six credit hours in the summer before his freshman year and continued with May-mester and summer courses every year since.

"I'm just here in the summer time a lot and I was taking a lot of classes,'' Christmas said. "For my major, I was just knocking out a lot of stuff that I needed. So I was getting down to it and I realized I had taken a lot of my major courses.''

A lot of hurdles stand between the Division I scholarship athlete and a degree. There's practice time. Time spent in the weight room. Time spent in meetings and studying film. And most of all, there's the travel that takes the athlete out of the classroom.

"The travel is the toughest on you,'' Christmas said. "We're gone a lot, but you've just got to keep in contact with your teacher, emailing them and sending in assignments.

"Practice isn't that bad. It's two hours out of your day. You go to practice and you have time to go home and do your work before you go to sleep. But when you're traveling, you don't really want to do your class work. You've got your head in the game. You don't feel like doing any work, but you've got to get the work done sometime.''

Christmas said he would try to get as much work done before the SU basketball team would go on a road trip. That way he wouldn't have to lug textbooks with him on the team's flight. Instead, he could rely on his laptop computer or an iPad. He would do his homework in his hotel room.

Fields would proctor tests for the players. Sometimes, Fields would come to the players' hotel rooms and get on them to do their work.

"I'm pretty self-motivated,'' Christmas said. "I've been here for three years. My freshman year, I had to have people tell me to do it. But as you go along, you realize that you have to get it done. So Joe doesn't have to bother me anymore.''

When he wasn't on the road, Christmas' normal routine consisted of classes in the morning followed by tutoring then practice and then home for some more studying.

"It's just doing the little things that you need to do to get it all done,'' Christmas said.

In addition to his class work, Christmas has played a prominent role on the Syracuse basketball team for the past three years. He has started all but two games in his SU career, playing on teams that have won 90 games and been to one Final Four and one Elite Eight. This past season, he averaged 5.8 points and 5.1 rebounds per game for the Orange.

"I'm sure some others have done it but it's difficult to do, especially when you're a starter at a Division I program,'' Boeheim said. "I'm really proud of what he's done.''

Christmas said his class work never detracted from basketball.

"I get my work done and when it's time for practice I forget about school,'' he said. "When practice is over, I go back to my school work. But there was never a time when I was too tired to practice because of school work.''

Christmas can rattle off the classes that he liked. Oceanography. Writing. Nutrition. Sex education.

"I love school,'' he said. "The teachers are just great people. When you go to those classes, it's fun to sit in there and just learn from them.''

However, Christmas couldn't come up with a class he didn't like, although he says a U.S. history class was the toughest. "It was just a lot of facts and dates you had to remember,'' he said.

Over the past three years, Christmas kept accumulating credits in summer school. Christmas, a native of St. Croix, Virgin Islands, went to high school in Philadelphia while living with his aunt. Once in college, he liked staying on the SU campus for part of the summer. He could take a couple courses and continue working out at the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center.

"I barely go back to Philly,'' Christmas said. "I'm always here taking classes. I was just knocking out credits and it all added up.''

Boeheim said that Christmas' summer courses buoyed the work he was doing during the fall and spring semesters.

"We have our guys go to school in the summer and mostly it's to get them back up to even,'' Boeheim, who noted that Syracuse will also graduate seniors C.J. Fair and Baye Moussa Keita, said. "It's hard to take a full course load every semester. Rakeem was able to get his credits every semester and the summer was additional. He was always using those credits to get ahead. It's hard to do that and you have to give up time.''

Christmas will return to Syracuse next year for what would have been his senior year. Instead, he will be a graduate student. He has been accepted into grad school for instructional design, development and evaluation.

"Anyone can finish in three years,'' Christmas said. "You don't have to be smart. You just have to do the work. It's the work ethic. Some people come here and just want to party and stuff like that. But you have to get your work done.''